Indigenous Glyphs, Granite Inscriptions
Abstract Opening with discussion of a monument that marked the centennial of Walt Whitman’s 1819 birth, this chapter interrogates Whitman’s engagements with hieroglyphic antiquity, excavating the graphic and alphabetic inscriptions that lie underneath Leaves of Grass. In 1920, lines from Leaves of G...
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| Format: | Book Part |
| Language: | unknown |
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Oxford University Press
2024
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| Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780192894847.013.19 https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/55996/chapter/440978104 |
| Summary: | Abstract Opening with discussion of a monument that marked the centennial of Walt Whitman’s 1819 birth, this chapter interrogates Whitman’s engagements with hieroglyphic antiquity, excavating the graphic and alphabetic inscriptions that lie underneath Leaves of Grass. In 1920, lines from Leaves of Grass were inscribed in massive letters on a Canadian cliff overlooking Mazinaw Lake in traditional Algonquian territory. Now, a full hundred years later, these inscribed words have eroded but are still faintly legible, aptly reflecting tensions original to Whitman’s own poetry, spanning organic grass and effaced granite, English language and Anishinaabe lands. The chapter argues that Whitman’s verses—rightly associated with leafy animation and serene leisure —are also rooted in a nineteenth century typified by archaeological discovery and deciphering, with Leaves of Grass growing from the granite and clay grounds of pre-Columbian America and Bronze Age Assyria, bridging between Indigenous petroglyphs and Near Eastern cuneiform tablets. |
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